suburbia

This is outside of my established “radius” for the New Providence area, but it’s still New Jersey, and it’s kind of awesome.

The sixth annual Asbury Park Zombie Walk happened yesterday. I didn’t stay for the whole thing (shame on me!), but I did get some fun shots of the undead wandering around Asbury Park (which happens less often than you’d think).

More serious readers may ask: What’s the point?
I would answer: There is no point. It’s fun, that’s the point.

1. If you found this photoblog through a search engine, and you’re looking for a particular search term or image, try typing those keywords into the search box over in the right-hand sidebar of this blog (underneath the calendar). (over there –> )

On Monday, I will be leaving New Jersey and starting a new chapter of my life in Chicago. I’ll be going to graduate school there for biomedical visualization (which is a fancy way of saying “medical illustration,” which is, y’know, drawing kidneys and stuff). I will be ceasing my daily photo activities. You will, however, still be able to find me on Snapshot Optimism, an occasional photoblog that I’ll be keeping up, as well as JosyDoodle, where I’ll show off my kidney drawings and stuff.

I am prone to enthusiastically starting projects, followed by enthusiastically forgetting about them two or six weeks later. But here, I wanted to prove that I could keep the ball rolling on something (that wasn’t immediately crucial to my life, like work or school). With the exception of a few short out-of-town excursions, I’ve posted every single day since December 14, 2006–which, including today, makes a total of 606 posts on this blog and 475 over on OTDP (which only began 4/30/07). I’ve loved it, I’ve hated it, I’ve been super-involved, and I’ve cared less, but I did it. I think I’ve accomplished what I set out to do here; I can only hope you’ve enjoyed the ride and maybe even learned something about Monmouth County, NJ. 🙂

For those who have found this blog by Googling “Things to do in Monmouth County:” I am as clueless as you are. My main source of entertainment ’round here is wandering around with a camera, looking for interesting things to photograph.

2. Bars (and/or restaurants, grills, etc. that serve liquor). Not so much fun here in suburbia ‘cos you have to drive home afterwards, so you really need to (ought to) watch yourself. Unless you have a designated driver, which no one wants to be. (The above photo was taken in the Brickwall Tavern, Asbury Park.)

3. Coffee. Only really works if there’s only a small group of you, though.

4. Movies. Hey, it’s something.

5. The Datebook. Go find your local print copy of the Asbury Park Press and leaf through it until you find the Datebook, which takes up the bottom half of a page and is usually printed in red or blue ink. A lot of the stuff is craft sales and “square dancing for ‘kids’ 55 and over,” but it’s worth a look. I have been unable to locate the Datebook online; you do need an actual physical copy of the APP.

6. Go biking. All right, maybe it’s not a ‘Saturday night with the gang’ sort of activity, but it’s healthy. Bob Lucky reviews and photographs several Monmouth County bike paths, and many of the Monmouth County Parks are set up for that sort of thing.

7. Walk around. This sounds monumentally stupid, but if you have nothing better to do, give it a shot. Red Bank, Asbury Park, local parks, and anywhere with a boardwalk can be fun places to do this.

Speaking of Red Bank and Asbury Park, here are some official lists of what’s going on in various towns:Asbury Park

A big trend nowadays on the Jersey Shore is using your car to proclaim that you’re a local (and not, heaven forbid, a benny) AND what town you’re from (in the manner long practiced by European countries). They make stickers like these for all of the shore towns, but these were the only ones I saw A) on parked cars B) while I had a camera handy.

Fireworks at Joe Palaia Park for the USA’s Independence Day! Viewed from a slightly distant supermarket parking lot with all kinds of trees and power lines in the way.* I had loads of company in that parking lot–many families threw little tailgate parties for the event. Due to the limited visibility, though, I heard sarcastic teenagers-who’d-been-dragged-along comments, like “OH MY GOD! THE FIREWORKS ARE AMAZING!” when the explosions didn’t quite clear the trees.

*Okay, technically, I was in the middle of a field that I probably shouldn’t have been in. Okay, technically technically I wasn’t in the middle– I was about 12′ away from the edge of Route 35. But I did park in that parking lot.

In Ocean Township, the second and fourth Wednesdays of every month are bulk trash day. This means that you can put your “bulk trash” (which is “large non-metal items”) out on the curbing the night before, and some nice trashpeople will come by in the morning and take it away for you.

This is, of course, fantastic, but there are certain weird rules that need to be followed.

For example, my family tried to get rid of some old tires. However, we could not put the tires out on the curb until we’d separated the rubber from the metal wheel. This is, unfortunately, a service that local shops will not provide for free. On top of THAT, the trashpeople are only allowed to take three tires at once. Three tires? THREE TIRES?! What on earth is the point of that?!

Anyway. This photo was just too cute to pass up. What sort of suburban residence has that many monitors to begin with?